


Do You Ever Wish You Could be Sixteen Again?

by SunnyD_lite



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Tag to The Witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joyce found the cheerleading outfit in the laundry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Ever Wish You Could be Sixteen Again?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters owned by Mutant Enemy and other corporations. No profit, no foul, right?  
> TamingtheMuse Prompt: Delirious  
> A/N: Even more thanks to Spiralleds for handholding and Thursday night betaing. Thursday! Whoot! Feedback and concrit always welcomed!

Joyce found the cheerleading outfit in the laundry.

"Do you ever wish you could be sixteen again?" Buffy's question haunted her.

At sixteen, mortgage was only a word. Divorce was titillating and she was sure she'd be a famous singer, jet-setting around the world with adoring fans.

The fact she didn't make the choir hadn't stopped that fantasy.

At sixteen, Justin Baldwin bumping into her had lead to hours of delirious speculation. She and Sarah had been so sure that he'd invite her to the dance. And then days of despondency when she found out he'd asked Molly Hawthorne instead. Molly was a cheerleader. Funny how all her yearbook pictures looked horrible.

At sixteen, she'd taken driver's ed and was the first of her friends to get a license. Suddenly trips to pick up milk became adventures that lasted hours. Making out in carwashes with Bobby Martin made her feel sexy.

That was why she'd taken the news of Buffy's failed driving test with such calm. The world had grown so dangerous since she was sixteen that no car was one less worry. Plus the insurance rates on a new driver… She indulged in a budget induced shudder. Although Hank might be persuaded to pay for that, should she let Buffy take the test again any time soon. The look of fear on the tester's face had mirrored her own reaction to her daughter's escapades on the roads. Time might heal all wounds, but what healed knocked over telephone poles?

It was funny how her normally coordinated daughter, the winner of skating awards and a cheerleader as a freshman, couldn't handle a car, even an automatic. At least in Sunnydale the plea of "everyone has a car" was patently false. Should it worry her that Buffy hadn't even tried that argument?

Not that she'd tried that one on her family. Well, not for a car. Later curfews, earrings, and platform shoes, sure. But not for anything as big as a car. They trusted her.

Maybe they shouldn't have. Maybe all teens test their boundaries. One time she and Sarah convinced their parents they were staying at each other's houses, and instead drove into the city to hit a disco. Sarah had a cousin in the city. They met up at a Denny's and turned their restroom into a change room, straightening their hair and doing their make up. They'd been so pleased with their fake ids, reciting names and birthdates to each other in case the bouncers asked.

Had Buffy mentioned Willow or Xander having access to a car?

At sixteen she was so sure she was an adult. She could do anything - once she'd decided what that was.

At sixteen her daughter had been expelled for burning down a gym. Had reacted to the divorce by hallucinating vampires. Had pouted through a move that had been difficult for both of them.

But now she was beginning to hang out in the library, make study dates and keep them. Hank's daughter, knowing where the library was! That hadn't happened at her old school.

Sixteen. The best of times. The worst of times. Being able to conquer the world one moment and reduced to a stress ball the next. Music was truer and things were more real. It was a life and death struggle, or so it seemed.

She couldn't even remember what dress she'd not gone to that dance in. They'd staged a boycott, not that anyone had noticed.

Her daughter was sixteen, and there was nothing a mother could do to protect her from that.

She wondered if she still had Sarah's number. Joyce wasn't sixteen anymore, but that didn't mean they couldn't remember.


End file.
